Gamification in Outbound Marketing

A quick follow-up to our post at the end of last week about Zynga and their shopping spree: We read this morning about Zynga’s partnership with DreamWorks Animation to promote the studio’s new movie, Kung Fu Panda 2. This is an important reminder about the scale that gamification has already reached, not just in the sphere of inbound market research, but equally impressively within the world of outbound marketing programs.

CityVille, which has more than 88 million monthly players, will allow users to place a Kung Fu Panda 2 themed drive-in movie theater in their city. Players who place the theater will also receive collection items, members of Kung Fu Panda’s Furious Five: Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey. When all five items are collected, an exclusive Po the Panda statue will be unlocked and available to players as a reward for completing the Kung Fu Panda 2 quest. The integration runs until May 31.

As TechCrunch also points out, this partnership follows the recent appointment of DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg to Zynga’s board of directors; one of many strategic partnerships that Zynga has begun to form.